It’s official. Paramount and Skydance are merging.
Paramount‘s board announced late Sunday, July 7 that it has approved a deal that will allow David Ellison‘s Skydance and RedBird Capital Partners to purchase National Amusements, which controls the majority of shares in Paramount, and allowing Ellison to make Paramount merge it with his company. All in, Ellison will be paying $8 billion in equity, including $1.5 billion in cash being contributed to help pay down Paramount’s $14 billion in debt.
Ellison is Paramount Global’s new CEO and chairman, and former NBCUniversal boss Jeff Shell is president. It’s expected that RedBird CEO (and former CNN chief) Jeff Zucker and Skydance creative chief Dana Goldberg will all have leadership roles.
“This is a defining and transformative time for our industry and the storytellers, content creators and financial stakeholders who are invested in the Paramount legacy and the longevity of the entertainment economy,” Ellison said in a statement. “I am incredibly grateful to Shari Redstone and her family who have agreed to entrust us with the opportunity to lead Paramount. We are committed to energizing the business and bolstering Paramount with contemporary technology, new leadership, and a creative discipline that aims to enrich generations to come.”
Shari Redstone, Chair of Paramount Global and Chair, President, and CEO of National Amusements, Inc. said, “In 1987, my father, Sumner Redstone, acquired Viacom and began assembling and growing the businesses today known as Paramount Global. He had a vision that “content was king” and was always committed to delivering great content for all audiences around the world. That vision has remained at the core of Paramount’s success and our accomplishments are a direct result of the incredibly talented, creative, and dedicated individuals who work at the company. Given the changes in the industry, we want to fortify Paramount for the future while ensuring that content remains king. Our hope is that the Skydance transaction will enable Paramount’s continued success in this rapidly changing environment. As a longtime production partner to Paramount, Skydance knows Paramount well and has a clear strategic vision and the resources to take it to its next stage of growth. We believe in Paramount and we always will.”
Paramount Global owns Paramount Pictures, CBS, Paramount+, Pluto TV, and cable channels like Nickelodeon, MTV, and BET. Skydance and Paramount had seemed like a strong match because the two previously collaborated on “Top Gun: Maverick” and the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, and it lessens the blow of major consolidation that could’ve come had Paramount been acquired by Sony, which also offered $26 billion to buy Paramount in full.
The merger will of course still need to go through a long period of regulatory approval, and there’s a 45-day window where other bidders are allowed to emerge, but it brings to an end one of the wildest sagas of M&A activity in recent memory. It involved National Amusements owner Shari Redstone walking away at the last minute from an earlier version of a deal with Skydance, furthering uncertainty around town and even letting others like Barry Diller to emerge as potential buyers.
Paramount, after letting go of CEO Bob Bakish, currently has three co-CEOs in charge, Showtime head Chris McCarthy, CBS head George Cheeks, and Paramount Pictures head Brian Robbins. Since Bakish’s departure in April, the Office of the CEO has explored the sale of BET, of merging Paramount+ with another streaming partner, and of cutting $500 million in costs in order to pay down debt. It’s unclear what will happen to any or all of those plans with Ellison set to assume leadership.
Skydance is bringing with it to Paramount its animation department led by former Pixar head John Lasseter, as well as a gaming division that has recently produced Marvel and Star Wars games for consoles and a “Walking Dead” game for VR devices, and it also has its own deal partnership with the NFL to supplement CBS’ own sports arm. In the announcement, Skydance and Paramount say the two companies hope to combine Skydance’s financial resources and technology with Paramount’s IP, film library, and Paramount+ with an eye to make Paramount the “premier, creative-first destination for storytellers, dedicated to top-quality content.”
Gerry Cardinale, Founder and Managing Partner of RedBird Capital said: “The recapitalization of Paramount and combination with Skydance under David Ellison’s leadership will be an important moment in the entertainment industry at a time when incumbent media companies are increasingly challenged by technological disintermediation. As one of the iconic media brands and libraries in Hollywood, Paramount has the intellectual property foundation to ensure longevity through this evolution — but it will require a new generation of visionary leadership together with experienced operational management to navigate this next phase. RedBird is making a substantial financial investment in partnership with the Ellison family because we believe that the pro forma company under this leadership team will be the pace car for how these incumbent legacy media businesses will need to be run in the future.”
Moelis acted as Financial Advisor to Skydance and its investor group.
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